The Sanctity, of Treaties.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 41, 5 October 1914, Page 5

The Sanctity, of Treaties.

. ' * ■ ‘ , v ■ : EMPIRE’S TERMS OF RELATIONS WITH GERMANY. “NO RECRUDESCENCE OF ERA OF BLOOD AND IRON.” [By Klkotbio Tbleqbaph—CopyeiuhtJ [United Pit ess Association.] (Received 9,10 a.m.) London, October 4.

The Premier, Mr Asquith, addressing a meeting of ten thousand people at Cardiff, said that in 19U2 the Cabinet laid down the terms of their relations with Germany, communicating the following declaration to her: —“Britain declares she will neither make nor join in any provoked attack upon Germany; aggression upon Germany forms no part of any treaty, understanding, or combination to which Britain is now a party; nor will she become a party to anything having such an object.”

Mr Asquith added: “There is nothing ambiguous or equivocal about that, yet Germany asked for a pledge of neutrality when she herself was enormously increasing her aggressive resources, and asked us to hind ourselves absolutely to neutrality and in the event of war asked for a free hand. When they selected the opportunity to overbear and dominate Europe, there could be only one answer possible. That answer we gave. Now we see written in letters of carnage and spoliation the signs and methods of Germany’s long-pre-pared scheme against the liberties of Europe.”

Mr Asquith, after referring to the sanctity of treaties and the right of small as well as large nationalities to live, said that was the reason they had brought the Indians to Marseilles and had extracted from the most distant of the Overseas Dominions the best of their manhood. At the end of the war he looked forward to seeing Europe safeguarded for ever from a recrudescence of an era of blood and iron. “Had England forsworn her word,” lie said, “had she deserted her friends and compromised the plain dictates of duty, there would have been nothing for the country but to veil her face in shame, and be ready in her turn to share the doom she richly deserved, and go down, after centuries of a glorious life, to the grave, unwept, unhonored, and unsung.”